Internet service providers (ISPs) or other data service providers may desire an accounting of data usage in order to track usage over a network. The ability to track data usage can be beneficial in assessing network congestion, historical usage patterns and other network related operational characteristics. This information, for example, may be used to adjust network operating settings or to take other action desirable to maintaining a high quality of service. The ability to track data usage may also be beneficial in order to bill users for consumed services. Some network providers may bill subscribers according to a number of bytes consumed over a given period of time or according to various billing tiers that provide price breaks contingent on an amount of data usage occurring over a given period of time. Accordingly, there is a need to assess data usage or other network consumption related information, particularly when devices are communicating over the network in order to reach devices connected to the Internet or at other locations associated with service provider.
Internet Protocol (IP) is a computer network protocol (analogous to written and verbal languages) that all machines on the Internet must know so that they can communicate with one another, i.e., IP is a layer 3 (network layer) protocol in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. The vast majority of IP devices support IP version 4 (IPv4) defined in RFC-791, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, and/or IP version 6 (IPv6) defined in RFC-2460, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Devices relying on IP may be assigned an IP address (e.g., an IPv4 and/or an IPv6 address). In some cases a device may be assigned a private or inside IP address for use over a private or inside network, such as a home network or other network internal to the service provider, and another public or outside IP address for use over a public or outside network, such as the Internet. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/285,676, the disclosure which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, relates to one method of facilitating use of inside and outside addresses with network address translation.
A network address translator (NAT) or a carrier grade network address translator (CGN) may be utilized to facilitate translating communications for devices which require association with inside and outside addresses. The use of inside and outside addresses can be problematic in tracking data usage for the associated user devices. In particular, the service provider or other entity tasked with tracking data usage may be unaware of the inside addresses assigned to a particular user. This problem can occur, for example, when a home network, Wi-Fi hotspot or a community type of network relies on a NAT to translate addresses for user devices that periodically or temporarily use the network. The problem can become further complicated in systems that allow temporary authentication or temporary user access, such as through a zero sign-on (ZSO) operations like the one described in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/423,359, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, as the service provider may be unable to assess usage attainable to a particular device due to being unaware of the configuration or methods by which a NAT of a visited network translates addresses.
While the present invention contemplates its use and application with an wireline or wireless network, including optical and cellular types of networks, one problem contemplated by the present invention relates to tracking data usage where all or part of the data usage is tracked for a network that relies upon cable as a communication medium. Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS), including four DOCSIS1.0, DOCSIS 1.1, DOCSIS 2.0 and DOCSIS 3.0, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, defines an architecture for supporting network related communications over a cable medium. DOCSIS architecture for IP High Speed Internet (HSD) services makes one important and fundamental assumption that there is a one to one mapping between the subscriber and Cable Modem (CM). At least in so far as assuming that all the user data that originates and terminates at a particular CM can simply be attributed to the subscriber of the CM, which prevents it from attributing data to particular devices behind the CM.
DOCSIS requires the CMTS to collect and report network usage accounting reports on a per CM basis. DOCSIS also supports collection and reporting of data usage on a per Service Flow (SF) basis. With the launch of Wi-Fi roaming service using the existing CMs in the subscriber homes or other places (e.g., Wi-Fi hotspots), the basic assumption of one-to-one mapping between the subscriber and CM does not hold true. This is because the Wi-Fi roaming services allow multiple roaming subscribers to obtain IP or HSD services from behind a single CM. The present invention contemplates allowing the service providers, including non-cable service providers, the ability to identify one subscriber traffic from another in order for accounting to work properly.